by John F. Carr
Grythos slapped him comradely like on the shoulder again. "If Styphon's House is to defeat Kalvan, we need to know all his tools. And from what I've seen they are no more demonic than Grand Master Soton's warhammer!"
Captain Geblon relaxed. "We could use more Archpriests like you, sir."
Now that's a fact, thought Phidestros to himself.
"Captain General, did you perchance bring along that eighteen pounder?"
"Two more just like it and two more batteries of smaller guns."
"I take it that you didn't just bring them along to road test your artillery?"
Phidestros smiled wickedly. "No, I've got a surprise of my own in mind for the Hostigi. There's a fortress, Tarr-Veblos, on the border between Harphax and Beshta. I'm going to invest it after this Phaxos debacle is done and over. The last thing the Hostigi will expect from the Harphaxi joke of an army is for us to besiege one of their tarrs. I'm hoping that we can breach the walls before Phrames can bring his own army out of Arklos, where he's waiting to see if we come after Queen Rylla. Instead, we send most of the infantry back to Harphax City, while the mobile diversionary force, supported by our artillery batteries, attacks Tarr-Veblos."
Grythos looked thoughtful. "With surprise and enough guns, maybe you can do it. Styphon knows it will help re-build Royal Army morale to have a victory under their belts-to say nothing of Prince Lysandros' Election to Great King. Even if you fail to take the tarr, you'll have field tested the Army and proven to the people of Hos-Harphax that they do indeed have an army, more than just in name."
A moment later Grand Captain Kyblannos rode up. "Captain-General, I see you've been watching the burning of Phaxos Town."
"Yes, and gnawing my teeth down to the gums because I can't do one Dralm damned thing about it! That's what I wanted to talk with you about. What would it take for you to put together a real artillery force, not just two or three batteries?"
"It'll take lots of gold and silver."
"Styphon's House has many chests of both," Archpriest Grythos put in. "I don't have any demonic arts at my disposal so I can't rustle you up some foundry casters out of thin air. But I can bring you enough gold and silver ingots to tempt even sober-minded Zygrosi from their villages."
Kyblannos said, "They've got some real good brass casters and founders up in Hos-Zygros, and with the Captain-General's help maybe we can get us a crew or two."
"Done!" Phidestros said. It was time to cash in some of his markers. He was no longer a ne'r-do-well byblow of the Royal family, but a man of substance. Commander-and-chief of the biggest standing Royal Army outside of Hos-Hostigos.
"Also, I'm not going to have time to run the Iron Band anymore and do all this training. I've already got my replacement all broken in," he smiled openly. "Right Geblon."
"We'll promote Geblon to Grand-Captain of the Iron Band, if that's what you want."
Geblon looked as if he'd just been given his pick of the loot in King Kalvan's treasury. "Thank you, Captain-General. And you, too Kyblannos!"
"Kyblannos, as of today you are now Grand-Captain of the Royal Artillery Regiment of Hos-Harphax. All mercenary artillery units will also be brought under your command, including all guns, rammers, wagons, tools and powder magazines. You can recruit any of the gunners worth their salt. We'll use the gold Archpriest Grythos so generously offered to pay off their captains."
The Archpriest nodded sagely.
Kyblannos rubbed his hands together. "Thank you, as well, Archpriest!"
"In return I only want one thing." Phidestros paused to point to the growing orange glow off to the north. "Next year I want that to be Hostigos Town!"
SUMMER
THIRTY EIGHT
I
Summer heat had come as the allied armies moved south toward the Lydistros River. The rain had not stopped completely, but it had diminished. So had the depth of the streams and the mud. While saddling up that morning, Kalvan had received a message from General Alkides, who had ridden ahead to the banks of the Lydistros to meet the boats coming downriver from Kyblos.
Chancellor Chartiphon, who had a talent for stating the obvious, said, "The high water has left no shallows and few rapids. It has also left less dry ground than one could wish. However, we may thank the gods for this, too. Prisoners say that the Zarthani Knights have withdrawn most of their river galleys and other vessels to Tarr-Ceros."
Thank the gods indeed, thought Kalvan. Counting bottoms, the Zarthani Knights had the second-largest navy here-and-now. Few of their ships could navigate beyond the mouths of the Great River, but they didn't need to. The rivers of the Sastragath, the Dellos (Tennessee) and Ellystros (Alabama) systems, were their domains.
Captain-General Harmakros was less grateful for what he saw as dubious favors. "His Grand Craftiness Soton may just be planning to lure us across the river. Then he can strike us bogged down before the fortress of Tarr-Ceros with the river at our backs."
Harmakros' son, Aspasthar, was seated next to Kalvan, but his eyes were on his father.
Prince Ptosphes, who was lighting his pipe, added, "You have to watch that one. He'd love to get us caught between Tarr-Ceros and his ships."
"We'll play that one by ear when we reach the Lydistros," Kalvan said. "Meanwhile, I won't have to answer to the Kyblosi for wrecked boats and drowned subjects."
Harmakros cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. "Your Majesty, with all due respect, I suggest we decide beforehand. Right now the Sastragathi see us as a gift from the gods. We give them hope of final vengeance on their ancient foes. If we don't cross the Lydistros and besiege Tarr-Ceros, the alliance may wash away down the river with the snags and dead pigs."
"We shall see," Kalvan replied. Now he wished he'd delayed his meeting to question Harmakros more closely. He should have remembered that Harmakros had commanded Sastragathi irregulars in the original Army of Observation, during the Year of the Wolf. The Captain-General knew more about handling them than his Great King, who was so damned tired he forgot to listen to advice even when he had it ready to hand.
Suddenly sheet lightning played along the darkening western sky. At the foot of the hill torches flared, drawing sparks of light from the mountain of armor, weapons and equipment left by the fleeing Knights. The big guns were destroyed and most of the swords blunted, but there was enough left to equip an army, and that fact hadn't escaped the nomad warriors. They were swarming over the piles like ants on a heap of honey.
Shouts of anger joined the shouts of triumph. Kalvan recognized Trygathi accents. He signaled to Colonel Krynos, his aide-de-camp. "Take a troop of Horse Guard and find out what's happening down there!"
Krynos took sixty men, leaving the rest around Kalvan. The Great King dismounted to spare his horse. If the united host didn't end its campaign with everybody walking and half of them barefoot, it would be Tranth's own miracle.
Kronos and the Royal Horse Guard rode up as the shouts reached a climax, then faded. Minutes later the shouting began anew.
A messenger breasted the hill, flinging himself out of his saddle as he reached Kalvan. "Your Majesty. The Sastragathi wish to claim all the Knights' gear, against your orders. They said they're under orders from Warlord Sargos, and you had promised them first choice."
"Dralm-damnit!" Kalvan growled. "First choice" was a fair offer to the unarmored, sometimes unclothed nomads. It wasn't the same as "everything," but try to tell that to an inflamed Sastragathi warrior! It was like telling a hungry wolf to take only one bite.
Captain-General Harmakros was carefully avoiding looking at his Great King. Then he turned in the saddle, and Kalvan saw his I-told-you-so expression, quickly replaced by surprise. A moment later Kalvan knew he must be matching expressions with Harmakros.
Sargos himself was riding up the hill. The Warlord rode at the head of a gaggle of his guards and subchiefs. Maybe they thought they were keeping a precise formation, but Kalvan couldn't tell which was the main body and which were the stragglers.
"Great King Kalvan! Is this the way you keep your promise to the clans? Your men have laid hands on mine, to keep them from there due. A great treasure lies down there! Will you have us put it to use, or have blood-feud with the tribes and clans?"
"I might ask you the same question," Kalvan replied, more patiently than he felt. Not all of the impatience was with Sargos either. "If blood has been shed, it was without my orders or consent and against my will. Those who shed the blood of tribesmen will be punished (tough luck, Krynos, but you were sent to find out what the trouble was, not to make it worse) and a blood-price will be paid."
"Will blood money guard the backs of men from the Black Knights' swords?" someone cried in a high-pitched voice. Kalvan saw that Sargos' teenage son Larkander was riding with his father tonight.
"No," Kalvan said, raising his voice to keep the argument from turning into a mob scene. There was too much steel and firepower to make this safe; one hothead could blow the alliance sky-high.
"No," he repeated. When Kalvan saw that the nomads were giving him at least half the attention a Great King deserved, he continued, "Yet not all the bare backs are tribesmen. Will not men of the Trygath fight better against our common foe with armor and weapons from the pile down there."
"We of the tribes have fought the Black Knights longer," one of the chief's said.
"This is well known. Yet if the Zarthani Knights are cast down from their castles and the land cleansed of Styphon's minions, who loses? If they survive to fight us again, who wins? Let us all join together and fight as one army."
Kalvan rested his hand on the butt of his pistol; the gold and silver chasing sparkled with each lightning burst. It was a presentation weapon from the Hostigos Gunsmiths' Guild, an unsuccessful effort to prove that they could produce elegant weapons quickly.
"Let us divide the loot into two piles, one for the clansmen and one for those of the Trygath. Then let each chief judge those most in need and give them their pick." This would cost them more than a day's travel, (he could almost hear Soton's chuckle) but if it would keep his so-called allies from each other's throats it would be worth the delay.
"I will begin the first pile with this pistol of mine. Whoever carries it, Trygathi or tribesman, he will carry it with my blessing. So speaks-"
"He seeks our Warlord's life!" somebody shouted. Kalvan's hand completed the drawing of the pistol before his ears could signal his mind to stop the motion. Then the sky seemed to fall upon him, a sky consisting of armored bodies.
Two shots crashed overhead, followed by a scream, a babble of curses and war cries, and Harmakros roaring above everything, "Take the bastard alive!"
The weight lifted from Kalvan, enough to let him draw breath for cursing. There was an audible sigh of relief from his Horse Guard. He spat out mud and grass, and then rose to his knees. A Sastragathi subchief was lying on his back, with Aspasthar kneeling on one arm and several hefty Sastragathi warriors holding other portions of the chief's anatomy-none too gently.
"What the Styphon-!"
Ranjar Sargos answered. "This fool thought you sought to take my life. He drew a pistol. Your war leader's son seized his arm so that his shot went wide of you. It struck my son in the arm. Yet with his other hand he joined-Aspasthar-in dragging the fool from his saddle."
"There is more, father," Larkander said. "Aspasthar shed blood too in the fight, and it mingled with mine."
"You are blood-brothers?" Both fathers seemed to speak at once, then stared at each other. Kalvan swallowed a laugh; he knew just enough about the Sastragathi to know that blood-brotherhood was a deadly serious business among them.
"It is an omen," cried one of the chiefs.
"This seems to be so," Larkander said, as he held his arm against his side. His father's face was as white as if he'd seen a premonition of his own death-or that of his line.
Aspasthar stood up proudly, holding his hand over a shoulder wound.
Since nobody else seemed to have the wits to do so, it fell on Kalvan to call a medic. Uncle Wolf Ramakros dismounted and limped over to the boys, bent down and began to bandage Larkander, who had the more serious wound, first. The question of dividing the loot dropped from everyone's mind until both Larkander's arm and Aspasthar's wound were tightly bound.
"Question him rigorously," Sargos said. "It must be known, whether he was only a witling, or a tool of Styphon's House. Has anyone seen this man before today?"
Everyone within hearing distance shook his heads. Which was not a definitive answer, since there were so many tribes and clans that no one man of the horde knew even half of them. Still, Kalvan relaxed. If Sargos was ready to torture one of his own captains to help the alliance, the worst danger of the split was already past. Note: Have to give Aspasthar something really impressive as reward-consulting with his father and blood-brother first, of course.
As the subchief was carried off, Sargos dismounted. He almost stumbled as he touched the ground. Kalvan realized that the Sastragathi Warlord had driven himself to the edge of exhaustion.
"I don't think our dignity will suffer if we sit down and share some wine," Kalvan said. He wanted to wash the grit and grass out from between his teeth. Sargos looked ready to lie down and sleep for a week.
Well, the man's in his forties. He'd probably be just as happy if being Warlord of the Sastragathi was a headquarters job, in a headquarters equipped with cool ale and warm women. By Hadron's flames, that sounds good to me, too!
That brought to Kalvan's mind a picture of his own warm woman. He wondered what Rylla was doing. Her last letter had promised to take no drastic action against the Harphaxi unless provoked, but to patrol the borders heavily and keep the Army of Hostigos ready to move swiftly.
Knowing Rylla, Kalvan knew far to well how "border patrols" could be turned into scouts, and then into the vanguard of an invasion. And 'provoked'-in Rylla's mind-was a sufficiently ambiguous term as to leave the gate wide open. Good thing Dalla, Colonel Verkan's wife, was in Greffa with her husband, when Dalla and Rylla got together trouble was never far away. From this distance, however, he couldn't do much but hope and consider praying to Dralm.
II
From the grim cast of Knight Commander Aristocles' face, Soton knew he was the bearer of more bad news. The Grand Master's first thought was that it was too early in the morning to hear anymore.
When he had heard Aristocles out, Soton knew that there was no time of the day or night fit for the hearing of such a tale. Kalvan was driving his host on as though he truly had demons at his command to put them in fear. The vanguard was already past Xenos, two whole days before Soton had expected them. The Usurper and his allies had not been delayed as much by the piles of discarded weapons and armor as he had hoped.
"That means they will be up with us in their full strength before we reach Tryphlon, which is a day's hard ride from Tarr-Ceros."
Aristocles nodded. "Unless they can be delayed."
"By whom?"
The two men looked at each other. They both knew the answer. The rearmost four Lances would have to stand, fight, and most probably die to the last man, like the three Lances had at Chothros Heights. "Who is senior Commander among the rearward?"
"Drakmos, of the Sixteenth Lance," Aristocles answered.
"May Kalvan's brother demons flay him alive!" Aristocles looked startled. Soton knew that some of the agony he felt must have shown in his voice. "No, it is just that I am growing weary of sending friends and faithful Knights to their death just to buy time."
"We could send another-"
"That would take time, which we do not have. His learning the land where he must stand would take more time. Besides, Lance Commander Drakmos would never abandon the Sixteenth."
You are doomed, old friend. All I can do is let you die with honor, as you have lived.
Soton looked at Aristocles, his best friend. The Knight Commander was a trusty right arm, a fine captain and more often than not a wise counselor. Yet he had not been among the c
ompany of youths to whose ranks had come one day a peasant boy, small of stature but with an ambition to be a Knight burning bright enough for six giants.
Some of the boys had bullied Soton in the practice bouts, with wooden weapons or unarmed. Others had held back, out of pity for so small an opponent with such a large and clearly foredoomed ambition. Only Drakmos had done neither, giving Soton his best and taking Soton's best in return. Since Drakmos had been the best fighter among the youths, Soton learned more from the bouts with him than from all the others put together. It would not be too much to say that Soton's own prowess on the battlefield, which had saved his life a dozen times over, was in large measure Drakmos' gift.
And now Soton was repaying the gift of a noble life with one of death. An honorable death, to be sure, but there was something to be said for an honorable life.
"Summon a messenger," Soton growled, to hide his urge to scream curses at Kalvan, the gods and anyone else who had brought this about. "Drakmos is to attack Kalvan's main body and keep on attacking until he has drawn that main body on to himself. We need not fear barbarians or light-cavalry scouts sent on ahead."
It hardly needed saying that the barbarians and scouts in advance of Kalvan's great host would cut off what little chance of retreat Drakmos and his Lances had. To balance the odds, Soton added, "We will leave a thousand of our Auxiliary light horse and all our Sastragathi irregulars."
The Sastragathi would probably all desert before Kalvan was within a day's ride, but the Auxiliaries would keep Drakmos from being stung to death by the light nomad cavalry. It was the least he could do.
"More orders," Soton snapped. "All the baggage, everything except a man's weapons and what he wears on his back is to be left for Drakmos."
Aristocles asked, "Everything?"
Soton shrugged. "Drakmos will need what supplies we have left. For the rest of us, it is as true as when I said it before and left most of our supplies. The gold of Balph can buy new armor, new tents, new fireseed, before the snow falls. If we lose the seasoned Knights, not all the gold of Balph will be able to rebuild the Order before Kalvan has crushed and cast down Styphon's House on Earth. If we do not think to the future, there will be none."